


Sing to Me the Song of the Stars

by AlyKat



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Assumed Relationship, Christmas get together, Clint's a little slow on the uptake, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Everyone Thinks They're Together, F/M, Feelstide 2014, First Kiss, M/M, Meet the Family, Meeting the Parents, Oblivious Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyKat/pseuds/AlyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had sounded like a good idea at the time, going with Phil when he went back to Chicago to visit his family for Christmas. This was something people did, right? Travel home at Christmas to spend time with family? It was totally a thing.</p><p>So why was Clint terrified?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing to Me the Song of the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to isisanubis for the wonderful beta job! And to Ralkana for the quick read beta (even though I told her it was just for her to read and enjoy, she couldn’t take her Beta Reader hat off! I appreciated the catches though!) 
> 
> Marvel’s toys, I’m just playing with them. Title from the old Mandy Moore song, “Only Hope”. Also blatantly stole a line from "The Blues Brothers", I regret nothing because it worked so well. Also, this kind of got away from me. I’d apologize, but, let’s face it. We all love us some college AU, don’t realize they’re dating fics, right?

It had sounded like a good idea at the time, going with Phil when he went back to Chicago to visit his family for Christmas. This was something people did, right? Travel home at Christmas to spend time with family? It was totally a thing.

So why was Clint terrified?

Why  _was_ he terrified? It wasn’t like he had any reason to be. He and Phil weren’t dating – roommates together in college four years running, and pretty much best friends, but that was as far as it went! – so it wasn’t like it was some big “must pass the parent test in order for the next step to be taken” sorta thing. Still, the closer it got to departure day, the more nervous Clint got.

As he stood in their dorm room, staring out the window and watching the rain fall down around them, he wondered if maybe there was still time for him to back out. Maybe he could say he was going with Natasha and Bucky to Brooklyn? After all, they were going to spend Christmas with Bucky’s childhood friend, no parents to be had. It was like, an orphans Christmas club! Clint would fit right in! Of course, if he were going with them, he would have had to have been ready to leave by six o’clock that morning and, well, at six o’clock Clint was waist deep in a really good – and highly inappropriate – dream. Bruce and Tony had already left for Malibu, and Thor had hopped a plane as soon as semester finals had finished to head back across the Atlantic to go spend the holidays with his family.

Which left just him. Lonely, lonesome Clint Barton. The pity charity case who usually spent his Christmases crashing on Natasha and Bucky’s futon. Obviously, this year, that wasn’t an option. Or, well, it  _was_ an option, since he had a key to their apartment, but it just felt weird being in their place while they weren’t there. Plus, Christmases suck when you’re alone.

So, that’s where Phil Coulson came in.

Phil was the kind of guy who would bend over backwards and give you the shirt off his back in order to help. A regular ol’ Junior Captain America. He’d been an Eagle Scout, he was president of a couple campus clubs (including the comic book/science fiction club), and was a tutor part-time. Not to mention, he was Clint’s absolute best friend. Honestly, Clint wondered if Phil was even human some days!

Taking a deep breath and swallowing past the nervous lump in his throat, Clint turned away from the window and shoved another pair of socks into his duffel bag. Just in case.

Behind him, the dorm room door opened, Phil stepping in and still shaking rain from his flyaway hair and jogging jacket.

“Hey,” Phil greeted, bright smile in place. “My stuff’s all packed up in the car. It’s about a fifteen hour drive so, figured we could split it up? I’ll drive up to Nashville, should be about seven o’clock by the time we get there.”

Clint glanced at the alarm clock, watching as it ticked over to half-past eleven.

Phil was too busy changing out of wet socks and into a warm, dry pair to see what time it was right then, and continued with his well thought out game plan. “We’ll grab supper there, and then if you wanna get us up to Champaign, I’ll take us the rest of the way.”

Blinking quickly, Clint stared at Phil like he’d grown a second head. “We’re gonna drive all night?”

“Yeah,” Phil looked up from tying his shoe and shrugged. “Shouldn’t be that bad.”

“Don’t you usually fly home? Isn’t it faster?”

“Well, yeah. Obviously, but I figured this would be better. Save some money on airfare and everything.”

Standing, Phil’s bright smile turned just a bit softer as he nudged at Clint’s shoulder. “Hey, c’mon. It’ll be fine. Promise. I have the route already programmed into the GPS. It’s not the fastest way, but it avoids toll roads, and it’s a little straighter shot.”

Clint looked back down to his beat up red duffel bag, which currently housed a good portion of his entire life, and took another deep breath. He could do this. Everything was fine. He could do this. With one final glance around the dorm, he finally gave a nod, zipped his bag closed and tossed it over his shoulder, grabbing up his purple track jacket off the back of the desk chair in the process.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

 

The drive from Savannah to Nashville was mostly uneventful. Clint kept quiet most of the way, especially while Phil tried to navigate through the outskirts of Atlanta and was nearly run off the road a few times by crazy drivers. Once they were clear of the big cities for a while, and they both could relax and breathe a bit, Phil turned on the radio and gave Clint permission to find them a decent station to listen to each time one went out of range. The time spent from Murfreesboro to Nashville was spent singing along in overdramatic and comedic fashion to the station Clint had found playing nothing but Christmas music.

Rain had stretched from Savannah to Chattanooga, which slowed them down a bit, and meant it was a little past seven-thirty when they finally pulled into a truck stop for supper. The place wasn’t anything fancy, but it at least was a clean, sit down restaurant with free refills on coffee, friendly smiles and had a waitress who was more than happy to fill up Phil’s thermos before they left.

As they walked back to the car, crossing the parking lot and passing the trucks that were lined up and dark for the night, Clint took a deep breath and turned to walk backwards so he could see Phil.

“Hey, ya know, going home for Christmas is pretty overrated, isn’t it?” He paused at Phil’s amused eyebrow raise. “I mean, it’s really cliché. The stuff they write holiday movies and sappy Folger’s coffee commercials about. We’re not that far from Savannah, we could turn back now and be eating pizza by about, what? Four-thirty tomorrow morning?”

“There’s no pizza joints near campus open until four-thirty,” Phil answered patiently as he shook his head and continued walking.

Clint wasn’t detoured. “Well, true, we’d have to wait for someplace to open and get breakfast pizza, but hey, I mean, we could totally spend Christmas sprawled out on our bunks watching the Die Hard marathon and isn’t Madame Wu’s open on Christmas? Die Hard and ridiculous amounts of Chinese food, think about it, Phil. Doesn’t that sound like the ultimate college guy’s Christmas? I’ll even buy us an obnoxious amount of alcoholic egg nog and the fixings to make hot buttered rum.”

Phil pulled the keys from his pocket and tossed them across the hood as he moved to the passenger door to wait for the car to be unlocked. “Dad already promised us alcoholic egg nog and you hate hot buttered rum. Plus, Madame Wu is good, but she couldn’t hold a candle to my mom’s Christmas feast.”

Arms folded against the roof of the car, Clint leveled Phil with a near pleading expression. “I’ll take you to the strip club and buy you a Christmas lap dance?”

“Chippendales?”

“Sure!”

Pretending to think about it for a minute, Phil shook his head and opened the door. “Nah. Thanks though.” He slid into the passenger seat, belt clicking into place while Clint grumbled and cursed and dropped down behind the wheel with a huff.

“My license expired in June, I hope you know this.” He muttered.

He could almost hear Phil’s smug smirk when Phil replied, “Then how were you planning to buy booze? Need a valid ID for that. Wake me when we get to Champaign.”

Clint groaned, thunked his head against the steering wheel once, and sighed. It was worth a shot.

Now Clint had his license, and he had driven before, but not so much at night, and almost not at all on interstates. The first couple hours were nerve wracking and not at all pleasant, especially once they crossed the Kentucky/Illinois border and the snow started up. Not real heavy, just enough to make it annoying and for Clint to become That Driver who was erring maybe just a bit too much on the dangerously cautious side of things. Phil had a really nice Jeep though, okay! Clint didn’t want to be the reason it got all messed up! All because he never really learned how to drive in wintery conditions. By the fourth hour of driving, he loosened up enough that it wasn’t quite so terrifying anymore. Of course, the fact that it was past midnight already so most of the cars were off the road helped. A lot.

Still, he was more than happy and ready for Phil to take over driving when they pulled into the Flying J truck stop in Champaign. Especially since he didn’t know how much further they had to go, and he really should have slept on the way to Nashville like Phil suggested.

“Go ahead and sleep, Clint. I can drive the rest of the way with my eyes closed,” Phil slid into the driver’s seat, setting his refilled thermos of coffee in the cup holder and a bottle of water on the other side.

Clint, already leaning the seat back and curled up in a ball, huffed a soft laugh. “Really rather you keep your eyes opened, Coulson. I’ll close my eyes for you.”

Phil chuckled and shook his head as he started the car up, turned the radio back on, and pulled back out onto the open road, murmuring, mostly to himself, “It’s a hundred and ten miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

“Hit it,” Clint mumbled back, the words muffled by the seat and his arm, before slipping off to sleep.

* * *

 

Clint woke with a start as the car fishtailed and the tires caught traction again. Bolting upright and breathing hard, he stared wide eyed out the windshield before looking at Phil, the dim blue light from the stereo doing nothing to hide the hint of blush stretching across the tops of Phil’s cheeks.

“Sorry,” apologized Phil, “corner was slicker than I thought. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“S’ok,” Clint mumbled, rubbing at his eyes and blinking out the window. “Where are we?”

Phil slowed the car considerably as he carefully took another corner, the lights of a nearby city glowing in the pre-dawn hour. “Just comin’ up on Joliet now. Should be just another ten, maybe fifteen minutes before we get home. Depending on how many stop lights we hit along the way.”

Joliet was a far cry from Chicago, like Phil always told people he was from, but it was still a decent sized little city. Nothing overly special about it, no real small mom ‘n’ pop shops to be seen – at least not in the section of town they were in – and all the same big name stores: a Red Roof Inn next to a Bob Evans restaurant, various fast food restaurants – none of them open yet, a Sherwin Williams paint store and the Joliet West High School.

Clint stared at the two story building as they sat at the red light and looked back to Phil, nodding to it. “Is that where you went to high school?”

“Yep,” Phil said, the p popping at the end as Phil carefully pulled out into the intersection and continued on their way. “Joliet West, same high school John Barrowman went to. Be jealous. Be very jealous.”

“Jealous?” Clint’s eyes were huge as saucers as he spun in his seat to look behind him, watching as the orange lights of the school got farther and farther away. “I think I wanna marry your old high school!”

A chuckle escaped Phil as he turned right onto another street, bringing them into a residential area. “Don’t be too hasty, he’d long since graduated before I got there.”

Flopping back in his seat, Clint turned to stare out his window at all the cute little ‘50s style homes that lined the street, updated and modern – fancier and more expensive looking – houses dotting the way. The trees and ground were covered in a blanket of fresh white snow, giving the homes that still had Christmas lights turned on the kind of glow and warmth shown in Christmas cards. It was the perfect picture of suburbia, and everything Clint expected it to be.

Phil made a couple more turns before finally bringing the car to a stop in front of a small detached garage. Dropping his head back against the seat, his eyes fell shut for a moment, his shoulders dropping while Clint continued to look around at his surroundings. In the not so far off distance, a church bell tolled the hour, chiming five times in a row before falling silent.

Sighing heavily, Phil pocketed the keys and shifted to pull his coat and gloves back on. “C’mon. Dad’s probably already left for work and with any luck Mom’s asleep. We can sneak in and get a few hours sleep.”

A quiet groan escaped Clint, and he stumbled from the passenger seat, zombie shuffling to the back to grab his bag. He huddled into his jacket a bit more, scowling at the fact it was cold enough to see his breath, and bounced on his toes, waiting for Phil to grab his own things and close the Jeep up so they could head inside. The idea of crashing out for a good few hours in a bed was possibly the only thing keeping Clint on his feet at the moment.

Bags in hand and Jeep locked up, Phil led Clint up to the backdoor of the house, pausing only long enough to unlock it and let Clint enter first. Stepping in, Clint shuffled off to the side, giving Phil room to come in and shut the door behind him before going up the two small steps and into a warm, dimly lit kitchen. None of the surroundings mattered to Clint at the moment. His eyes felt like sandpaper and all he wanted was to curl up on a flat surface and sleep for the next day or so.

He followed Phil through the main floor and up the stairs to the second floor, startling to a stop when Phil stopped suddenly.

“Hi, Ma,” Phil quietly said, finally coming up the last steps and moving aside so Clint could finish coming up behind him.

Stepping up beside him, Clint glanced around Phil to see the woman standing in a doorway looking just as surprised as Phil.

“Phillip! You made it!”

In the time it took Clint to blink and realize he was maybe falling asleep standing up, Mrs. Coulson was there, wrapping Phil up in a tight hug.

“I was starting to worry. Dad was getting ready for work and said you still weren’t here, and we’ve gotten so much snow over the past few hours that I –“

“We’re fine, Ma. Promise. Just really, really tired, so…”

Clint watched through bleary eyes as Mrs. Coulson let go of Phil and turned to him, her smile bright and crinkling the corners of her eyes the same way Phil’s did when he smiled. He blinked in surprise when he found himself suddenly pulled into the same tight embrace he’d seen her give her son just a moment before. He tensed, his throat tightening, and he must have looked panicked because Phil was there, gently pulling his mother away, chuckling softly.

“Think you’re crushin’ him, Ma.”

Mrs. Coulson smiled apologetically, giving Clint’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, I’m just so glad to finally meet you! Phillip’s told us so much about you.”

A blush crept up Clint’s neck, and he shifted awkwardly, hoisting his duffel bag up onto his shoulder a bit higher as he gave a slightly off half-laugh, but otherwise stayed quiet. He wondered what kinds of things Phil could have told his parents about him. Probably that he was the poor orphan kid who didn’t have anyone there to help him move in or out that first year of college. That he was basically homeless during the summers and lived off his friend’s futon. All that not-so-flattering great stuff.

Turning her attention back to Phil, Mrs. Coulson motioned off down the hall. “I put fresh sheets on your bed, so it’s not so musty smelling for you boys. Go on and get some sleep. I’ll see you both in the morning.” She turned then, leveling Clint with another bright smile. “It’s so nice to meet you, Clint. Go on, now. You must be exhausted.”

“Nauseous,” The word left Clint’s mouth without any chance of being stopped. Eyes wide, he quickly backpedaled, shaking his head. “Gracious, uh, grateful, guh…”

Mrs. Coulson fought back a smile as she cast a glance to Phil and gave Clint’s shoulder another gentle squeeze. “Go on to bed, both of you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She slipped past them without another word, disappearing back into the room she’d come out of and leaving Phil and Clint standing on the stairs.

Phil knocked his shoulder into Clint’s with a soft half-laugh, motioning for him to follow. “C’mon. Better get you horizontal before you fall down.”

“Or shove my foot farther down my throat,” Clint grumbled in reply, taking a deep breath and shuffling after him. He was surprised when Phil put an arm around his shoulder in a half hug, the quiet chuckle breezing past his ear.

“Don’t worry about it,” Phil pulled Clint along to his room, opening the door for him, “Mom’s a teacher, she’s used to college students making idiots of themselves. She’s not gonna judge you or anything. She likes you.”

Clint leaned into the half hug, purely out of habit and that little part of him that was maybe a bit touch starved, and huffed. “She doesn’t even know me.”

“She knows enough about you. Don’t worry, she likes you.” Phil pushed Clint farther into the bedroom, clicking the door shut behind them, and dropping his bags to the floor.

Grumbling nonsensically under his breath, Clint dropped his duffel, nudged it towards the foot end of the bed, and dropped face first across the mattress. He really didn’t remember much after that. The strange sensation of being moved and nudged so he was lying on the bed properly, his shoes and socks being taken off, and maybe the blankets getting pulled up over top of him. Other than that, his brain had shut down and all worries about meeting Phil’s parents and making an ass of himself were the furthest thing from his mind.

* * *

 

Coming awake slowly the next morning, there were three things that registered in Clint’s mind. 1) He was in a strange place and in a strange – but insanely comfortable – bed. 2) It was well into the morning, if not heading into early afternoon, if the glare from the snow was anything to go off. And 3) He was not only wrapped up warm in blankets, but also had an Octo-Coulson wrapped around him, fast asleep. This was not surprising to him. He’d known, after spending four years sharing a dorm room with Phil, that the guy was a closet cuddlier. As in, the cuddliest cuddlier who ever cuddled, when given the chance. How had he come to this discovery? Let’s just say, there’d been copious amounts of illegally bought alcohol provided to them by their friend, Tony “I Do What I Want” Stark, and falling asleep sharing Tony’s bean bag hammock.

Lying in bed for a few minutes longer, Clint took his time to get his bearings and try to keep himself from freaking out any further. He occupied himself with looking around Phil’s room and coming to the realization that it was far from what he’d expected it to be. The subtle but warm moss green walls offset by dark chocolate brown trim and shelves gave the room a comfortable and cozy feel, a far cry from the poster clad walls accented by Christmas ribbon lights of their dorm room. And yet somehow, it still felt so very Phil. On the far wall, taking up most of the space, was a large bay window with a window seat, framed on both sides by bookcases filled top to bottom with pictures, knick-knacks, and Phil’s prized comic book collection.

Finally, a soft snort and subtle shift alerted Clint to Phil waking up. Carefully extracting himself when Phil rolled to stretch and flop onto his stomach facing the opposite direction, Clint moved to stand and stretch the kinks out of his back and neck. He probably should wait for Phil to really wake up and be functioning, not just the pre-coffee after an all-nighter zombie stage, before he went wandering around his home in search of a bathroom, but the screaming from his bladder was insistent.

Clint slipped silently from the bedroom and paused in the hallway, trying to decide which way to go. To the left was the stairs, the door he’d seen Phil’s mom come out of, and what was quite possibly a closet. On the right were two more doors. Deciding that way was the better chance of finding the bathroom, he turned and poked his head into the first room he came to. A simple but elegant office space with a wall of tastefully arranged photo frames to one side of the computer desk and a clearly military memorial wall to the other side. The need to relieve himself was too much for Clint to stick around and investigate further, even though he really wanted to.

Once he’d made his bladder gladder, Clint debated going back to the room or not. He was still dressed, he could slip downstairs to investigate on his own, but then he ran the risk of coming across Phil’s mom alone. He wasn’t quite sure he was ready for that. He ducked back into the bedroom just in time to see Phil sit up and yawn. Dark hair stuck up in every direction and Phil rucking his hands through it did little to tame it.

The half-laugh that came out of him could not be stopped. Phil always looked ridiculous waking up in the morning. Ridiculous in that totally endearing and adorable way. The laugh caught Phil’s attention and earned Clint a single finger salute before Phil raked his hands down his face to rub the sleep away.

Clint stepped into the room, a smirk tugging up the corner of his mouth. “Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” he teased, stooping to pick his duffel up off the floor and drop it back down on the bed.

Phil mumbled a response under his breath before slipping out from under the covers and disappearing out into the hall. The few minutes that Phil was gone gave Clint enough time to change into a fresh pair of clothes and work his own hair down into submission before Phil’s return. Last thing they needed was to go downstairs and for Clint to meet Phil’s mom, officially, with what Natasha had eloquently dubbed “sex hair”. Because, for whatever reason, Clint rarely got bedhead -- where it stuck up only on one side -- his hair stuck up every direction imaginable.

When Phil came back, his hair was still sticking up and he really didn’t look any closer to being fully conscious than he had when he'd left. It was a far cry from the way he woke up at school, Clint noticed. He decided – chuckling to himself as Phil had only stopped back in his room to get Clint, not to get changed into anything more than his boxers and T-shirt that he’d worn to bed — that it had to be the comforts of home making it harder for Phil to wake up.

The pair wandered back into the hall, and Clint bit at his lower lip, tugging at the chapped bits with his teeth, in order to keep from panicking too hard. He could hear movement on the main floor, and definitely smelled bacon and pancakes, and his fears from the night before all came rushing back to him. What if he said something stupid? Oh God! What if Mrs. Coulson remembered what he’d said when they got there? How big of an idiot he’d been! What if he ate too much at breakfast? Sure, he’d usually have a huge breakfast at school, but that’s because he could! This was an actual family breakfast! What if he didn’t eat  _enough_ and Phil’s mom thought he didn’t like what she’d fixed? What if they found out he was just a stupid orphan who couldn’t ever get placed and had to retake 7th grade on account of not being able to properly read?

So lost in his thoughts and worries, he didn’t even notice when Phil stopped in front of him. Suddenly, Clint was stumbling into Phil’s back, arms instinctually wrapping around his waist to try and keep them both upright, and his head dropping to Phil’s shoulder.

“No cuddling in the kitchen please.” Mr. Coulson teased from around the rim of his coffee cup, he and his wife fighting to hide matching grins.

Cheeks flushing hot, Clint jumped back, his eyes wide. He opened his mouth to apologize for seemingly feeling their son up – which he totally wasn’t! Obviously! – but no words came out. A heavy knot twisted itself tighter in his stomach.

Phil shuffled away, past his dad at the table, and to the counter where a second cup of coffee sat. “Not cuddlin’,” he mumbled, voice still thick with sleep.

Clint must have looked like a deer in the headlights when Phil left him standing alone and unprotected in the doorway, at least if the chuckle his mom gave a minute before taking hold of his arm and pulling him to an open seat was anything to go by.

“C’mon and sit down, Clint. We didn’t get to be properly introduced this morning,”

“Uh…”

Mrs. Coulson moved to grab a plate off the counter, stacked high with slightly overcooked pancakes, and set it in the center of the table. Before she had a chance to introduce herself and her husband, Phil was back at Clint’s side, slipping him the half-finished cup of coffee.

“Clint Barton, my parents,” Phil started, motioning off towards his mom, “Melanie.”

“Mel, please.” Mrs. Cou – Mel – smiled.

Phil hardly acknowledged the interruption and continued the introduction, “And Robert. Mom, Dad, Clint Barton. Can we eat now, please?”

Mel chuckled softly as she handed Phil a couple of plates and silverware. “Yes, you can eat. Help yourselves. Clint, honey? Do you want some milk or juice or anything? Your own cup of coffee?”

The sly little smile playing on her lips wasn’t lost on Clint, though it was slightly confusing, until he saw Phil grab the mug, take another drink and put it back down in front of Clint. Looking up, he shook his head and gratefully took a filled plate from Phil.

“Uh, no. Thanks. It’s okay. I’m fine.”

Robert and Mel both exchanged glances, doing very little to hide their amusement with the two young men in front of them. Clint did his best to not scarf his food, and not to let whatever little in-joke the parents had get to him. He really didn’t understand what was so amusing about Phil and him sharing a cup of coffee. They did it all the time at school. Hell, it wasn’t uncommon for only one of them to get a meal and for the other to steal half of it and the drink. It was just the way they were.

Stuffing a forkful of pancakes into his mouth, Clint finally allowed himself to look around and soak things in. Which maybe wasn’t one of his brighter ideas.

The Coulson’s home was beyond beautiful and perfect. The kitchen alone looked like it was straight off a showroom floor or something. Dark cherry cabinetry and granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, an island with flat range surface stove. Pale peach ceramic tile floors and cream colored walls. It was definitely the nicest looking kitchen Clint had ever been in in his life. The fact it was decked out in cutesy little Christmas knick-knacks on the windowsill above the sink and a Frosty the Snowman cookie jar on the counter just made it feel even more impossibly perfect.

Behind him stretched the dining room, also decorated for Christmas and with sleek lines and furniture that was both modern and still held a bit of old fashioned country living to them. The living room was beyond that, and Clint remembered from their trip down the stairs how beautiful it had looked. Sage colored walls, natural woodwork on the trim and doorways, garland and ribbon tastefully outlining the doors and windows and up the stairway railing. A large tree had stood bare in the corner next to an electric fireplace.

Everything about the home screamed perfection. Like each room had been taken straight out of the pages of the Christmas edition of a home decorating magazine. Everything Clint had always envisioned Phil’s house being, and everything that reminded Clint just how painfully out of place he was among it all.

He’d just shoved another forkful of food into his mouth when Mr. Coulson – Robert – set his own coffee cup aside and turned his attention on Clint.

“So Clint,” he started, startling Clint and causing him to pause halfway to his mouth with another clump of pancakes on the end of his fork, syrup dripping down onto the table, “Phil tells us you’re quite the writer and photographer. What is it you’re majoring in, down in Savannah?”

His throat suddenly tight, Clint glanced to Phil quickly before realizing he was making a mess and using that to deflect and stall before answering. “Uh, could you hand me some napkins please? Sorry. I…it’s dripping…and I…”

“Oh! Here.” Mel was quick on her feet, bringing Clint a warm wet cloth to wipe the table up with.

Nodding his thanks, and ducking his head as he scrubbed at the wood tabletop, Clint forced himself to form the words so he could answer. He’d worked long and hard to convince himself that there was nothing wrong with what he was majoring in. Lots of people did. And lots of people even made money doing it, once they graduated!

He carefully folded the wash rag and set it off to the side, just in case he’d need it again, and looked up, realizing that Robert was still waiting for an answer.

“Uhm…I actually am, uh, d-double majoring?”

That seemed to be the right thing to say as Robert’s eyebrows raised towards his hairline and Clint couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Phil got the genes for his hair from his mom’s side of the family, since Robert’s hair was still very much there and thick and dark.

“Really? What in?”

“Dramatic writing and photography.” The knot in Clint’s stomach twisted all the harder as he knew exactly what question was going to come next. The same one that always came next after hearing that. Oh? What are you planning to do with those degrees?

Robert didn’t disappoint when he seemingly read Clint’s mind and asked exactly that.

Clint tried hard not to sink down into his chair any, or look to Phil for support. Neither one of them ever received great reactions when people found out what they were going to school for.

Clearing his throat, he shifted in his seat awkwardly. “I uhm, I really like to write, so uhm…I wanna write screenplays? Or something? And maybe do photography on, uh, on the side?”

The chair across from him scraped across the tile floor as Mel slid into it, her own coffee steaming in front of her and a bright smile in place. “That sounds ambitious! We should hire you to take pictures of the house once we get it up on the market.”

Heart hammering, Clint gave a small shrug and nod, swallowing thickly and reaching for the coffee cup only to find Phil had finished it on him. The jerkwad. “Uhm, s-sure. I mean, I could take some pictures for ya’s. I guess. If you really want me to.”

“I think it’s a great idea. Good way to get your portfolio established, too.” Robert nodded. “Do you and Phil ever think you’ll try to strike out on an independent comic book together?”

“Dad, can we please just eat?” Phil finally sighed, slumping back in his seat and lazily turning his head to meet his parent’s gazes. “We drove all night to get here. Let Clint finish eating his breakfast and get his bearings, then you can give him the third degree.”

“Who’s giving the third degree? I asked him three questions. That’s hardly the third degree.”

“Okay, well, can we at least wake up a bit more before it actually begins?”

Clint watched as father and son went back and forth. While it seemed docile enough, there was just enough of a hint of annoyance in Phil’s voice to make Clint uncomfortable and for his knotted up stomach to clench painfully.

He pushed back from the table and stumbled a bit before looking to Phil, awkwardly blurting out, “There a bathroom down here?”

Silence fell over the table before Phil nodded and motioned to the other side of the kitchen. “Yeah, right over there.”

Without a word of explanation, Clint ducked around the small wall that hid the door to the bathroom from sight and locked himself into the room. He turned the faucet on, splashing the cold water on his face a few times, before just leaning against the sink, listening to the conversation taking place on the other side of the wall.

“Is he okay? Is he feeling alright? I can make some soup and you boys can just rest in the living room today, if that –“

“Ma, please, just don’t. Clint’s fine, he’s just…he’s not used to this kinda thing. Getting fussed over and parents actually taking an interest. So just, I dunno, maybe don’t ask him too much?”

“We hardly asked him anything. Are you sure he’s alright?”

“I’m sure, Dad. He’s just not used to family stuff.”

“The poor thing.”

It was the pity in Mel’s voice that made Clint feel even more sick to his stomach. He hated it when people sounded sorry for him; their pity reminding him just what kind of a pathetic reject he really was. Taking a deep breath, he finally stepped back out when all had gone quiet for a few seconds. When he came back into sight, Phil’s plate was clean and Mel was at the sink again rinsing dishes to put into the dishwasher.

Slowly, cautiously, Clint slipped back into his seat and stared down at what was left of his pancakes, not sure he could finish them now. Phil seemed to sense this as his fork suddenly appeared out of the corner of Clint’s eye and cut off a chunk before stabbing it and bringing it back to his own plate. An awkward smile crept across his face as he nudged the plate closer to Phil, silent permission to let him take whatever he wanted.

“Phillip?” Mel finally asked from the sink. “Why don’t you boys go spend the day out and about? It’s not supposed to be too terribly cold out.”

Robert nodded, his attention back on the crossword puzzle in front of him. “Roads should be good and clear by now. Not supposed to get any more snow ‘till Christmas Eve. Gonna be a real doozy too, if the weatherman’s right. I’ll probably be out all night again.”

Phil glanced up and must have noticed Clint’s slightly confused look. “Dad’s a snowplow driver.”

“Professional snow removal technician,” Robert corrected with a roll of the eyes as if he’d had to either correct people more times than he’d like, or thought the title was ridiculous.

“Right. Sorry. Professional snow removal technician. Snowplow driver.” Phil huffed back, shaking his head.

Clint gave a small nod of understanding and tilted his head curiously.

“What do you do during the summer?”

Laughing out right, Robert leaned back in his chair and Clint shifted awkwardly under the look he was suddenly pinned under.

“Summer I lay fresh gravel down on the gravel roads, I help fill in potholes, re-grate the gravel shoulders, and work on preparing the plows for winter. I stay plenty busy during the summers.”

Mel returned to the table, taking Clint’s now cleaned plate and flashing both him and Phil a sympathetic smile. “You boys really should go out and enjoy the day. Go to Zoo Lights! Or Naper Settlement. They’re having sleigh rides.”

Once again, the smile that she gave seemed a bit odd to Clint, like she was trying to subtly suggest something. Whatever it was, it had Phil rolling his eyes and pushing himself back from the table to stand.

“Alright, alright. We’ll go out,” he mumbled, shaking his head and reaching down to squeeze Clint’s shoulder.

A shiver ran through Clint as Phil’s fingers brushed feather light across the nape of his neck as Phil slipped past him, nudging him to get him to go with. Clint stood almost immediately and moved to follow, anxious to get away from whatever in-joke Mel and Robert were still having between themselves. He could feel their eyes on him as he and Phil made their way back to the living room and back up the stairs, and glanced back just once to see them quietly talking and laughing to themselves.

Clint ducked back into Phil’s room and dropped himself back down onto the bed, arm draped over his face. “I’m making the worst first impression ever,” he muttered, rolling onto his stomach to stuff his head under a pillow.

“Please. My parents love you already. C’mon, get up and throw a sweatshirt on. I think both of us need to get out of the house for a little while.” Phil nudged at Clint’s foot and grabbed his own clothes from the night before off the floor to pull on instead of trying to find something truly clean to wear.

Sitting up, Clint reached for his duffel bag, using Phil’s hip for support as he leaned. “They don’t even know me though. How could they love me?”

“Because. I’ve told them about you. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just head out for a while. We’ll go up to Naper Settlement like Mom suggested. You’ll be able to get tons of great pictures there.”

It was clear to Clint that something was maybe bothering Phil a bit, but he’d learned quite some time ago that asking what was wrong while Phil was still frustrated wasn’t really a good idea. So, he simply nodded, shrugged his sweatshirt on and made sure his boots were laced up and tight, and followed when Phil left the room once more.

* * *

 

Naper Settlement, it turned out, was a little tourist trap not much more than a half-hour, maybe forty-five minutes, north of where Phil lived. It claimed to be the original settlement for the city of Naperville, and was really not much more than a couple of acres of grounds, a bunch of beautiful, tall trees, a handful of buildings, and historical reenactment volunteers roaming around in period dress. Still, it was nice. All the history was carefully placed in each of the buildings, and there was a real blacksmith on site that gave demonstrations and had little knick-knacks for sale in the gift shop.

There were plenty of couples roaming the area, walking hand-in-hand, huddled close for warmth. Clint snapped a few pictures of some of them, but mostly he photographed the buildings – all covered in snow and decorated with red faux velvet ribbons and bright green garland – and the actors out caroling under one of the street lamps, and even a healthy amount of Phil-centric photos. Because that’s what friends do. Obviously.

The sleigh ride was something Clint found really incredible. And he maybe drove Phil a little bit nuts singing “Over the River and Through the Woods” and “Jingle Bells” over and over again until Phil playfully pounced at him and tried to make him eat his own knit hat. The driver seemed to find amusement in their antics and cast them the same curiously amused and endeared look that Phil’s parents had. It was weird.

From there, they stopped off for a late lunch before heading to the Park ‘n’ Ride lot to catch the train heading towards the Brookfield Zoo, where they’d buy tickets for Zoo Lights, a holiday event where scenes made from Christmas lights were on display, featuring different animals from around the zoo and then some.

All around them, as they wandered the zoo aimlessly, were couples, young and old, and families out enjoying the spectacle. Clint frowned as he saw two guys, around their age, maybe a little younger, go walking by hand in hand. Looking back to Phil, he huffed a small laugh and gave him a small nudge.

“Lots of couples out, huh?”

Phil glanced around, a brow raised as if he hadn’t actually noticed until just then. “Yeah, guess so. Can see why.” He shrugged, moving on from the lights display of swinging monkeys and onto one of tropical birds. “Kind of a romantic place to be, when all the lights are glowing and it’s cold like this so you need to huddle for warmth.”

Clint nodded thoughtfully and looked around again, snapping off a few other pictures.

“You ever come here with anybody before? I mean, like, on a date?”

“Nah,” Phil shook his head, finding a sudden interest in his shoes. “Always kind of wanted to, though. Get our picture taken by the lights. All that stuff.”

Frowning in thought, Clint glanced down at his camera for a moment before taking it off from around his neck. He grabbed hold of Phil’s arm and pulled him along until they got to the light display of penguins -- Clint’s favorite and the lighting was pretty decent there.

“Stand there,” he instructed, putting Phil right where he wanted him to stand before grabbing the first person to walk by them.

“Hi, hey, excuse me. Mind taking a picture of me and my friend, please?” Clint flashed his mega-watt smile, holding his camera up as emphasis.

The stranger glanced to his date before shrugging and taking the camera from him. Still grinning brightly, Clint darted back to Phil and tossed an arm around him, pulling him in close so they were very nearly hugging. His smile stayed in place as the impromptu photographer snapped off two pictures, just in case, and when he pulled back to take the camera again, Phil quickly stepped away with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Clint didn’t bother to look at the pictures right away, instead just thanked the couple and turned to rush after Phil, knocking into his shoulder once he caught up.

“So where to next?”

Phil glanced at him and gave a shrug, turning his attention back ahead of them. “The Arctic animals section should still be open. Go see the polar bears and some real penguins?”

At the mention of seeing real penguins, Clint’s whole face lit up with excitement. “We have to see the penguins. C’mon!”

They made a few more stops along the way to the penguin habitat, pausing for a couple more pictures of the lights and for a cup of hot cocoa each, before finally finding themselves standing on the other side of a glass encasement, watching the penguins toddle about and dive into the water below. Clint stood with his nose pressed to the glass, his breath fogging up around him as he watched the birds with childlike glee. After a moment had passed, he spun quickly and pulled Phil in against his side, the camera held out at arms-length in front of them.

“Obligatory selfie!” Clint exclaimed, “No duck faces. We’re too cool for that.”

As the light flashed Clint groaned and shook his head. “No good. I blinked.”

Beside him, Phil huffed a soft laugh and leaned in just a little bit closer to Clint, just in time for the second flash to go off. As they separated, Clint frowned watching the battery light flash red for a moment before shutting the camera off with a quiet whir.

“Aww, camera,” he whined, a small pout tugging his bottom lip out.

Phil laughed again softly and nudged at Clint’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hey, it’s had a long and busy day. We can’t blame it for dying on you now.” Grinning, he dropped his arm around Clint’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “C’mon, we’ll hit up the gift shop and then head out so we don’t miss the train.”

It took Clint a moment to realize just how late it’d actually become, and when he did, he swung the camera onto his shoulder and followed Phil towards the exit. They putzed around in the gift shop for a little while, long enough for Clint to fall hopelessly in love with a life sized emperor penguin plush toy, going so far as to carry the three and a half foot tall stuffed animal around with him for a few minutes before reluctantly putting it back when he realized he didn’t have enough money for it, plus, he’d have to buy it its own seat on the train ride home.

It was as he was putting it back that he realized Phil had disappeared from sight. Frowning, Clint made his way past the sweatshirts and hats display, the knick-knacks and overpriced kitsch with personalized names on them, and only managed to get side tracked by a giant stuffed polar bear for a minute before Phil was back at his side.

“Hey,” Phil laid his hand on Clint’s shoulder, giving him a small tug as a plastic bag swished quietly at his side. “C’mon, we gotta get going. Train’s gonna be here any minute.”

The  _swish_ of the bag caught Clint’s attention as he turned and leaned to try and see what was in it. Phil’s hand tightened around the straps and he shook his head.

“Christmas presents.”

Clint’s eyes lit up hopefully. “Christmas presents for me?”

“We don’t get each other presents,” Phil answered, shaking his head again and leading the way out of the shop and towards the park exit. “It’s mostly just stuff for my folks. A magnet for our mini-fridge back at school. Nothing real exciting.”

The light in Clint’s eyes dimmed some as he looked down at his hands, clenching them tight inside the sleeves of his jacket to keep them warm. “Oh. Right. That’s cool. The magnet’ll look great on our fridge.”

He tried not to let the disappointment show. Not that he really had had money to spend on gifts anyways, but still. When he’d spend Christmas at Natasha and Bucky’s, he always got at least a little something from both of them. Phil was right though, they didn’t get each other presents, not usually at least. Mainly because Phil was almost always gone as soon as he finished his last final of the semester so Clint never would have had time to give him anything, anyways.

* * *

 

By the time they got back to the parking lot the car was in, stopped for a burger and fries at Portillo’s, and got back to Joliet, it was well past ten o’clock. Most of the lights were out on the lawns along the street, including Phil’s house. Silently, Clint kind of hoped he’d get to see the decorations all lit up the next night.

The pair slipped into the house just as quietly as they’d done earlier that morning, both pausing to slip their shoes off at the door and hang their coats up before continuing into the house. Clint’s throat tightened at the sight of the garlands all lit up and twinkling in the house, giving it the warm, homey feeling that had always been absent at his house growing up, no matter how hard his mom had always tried. It was still overwhelming and he was terrified of touching anything, but at least it seemed like Robert and Mel had gone to bed, so he really didn’t have to worry about them.

Clint followed Phil up the stairs and down the short hallway to his room again, flopping back on the bed with a quiet groan. While it hadn’t been overly cold out, it hadn’t been particularly warm out either, and Clint was pretty sure his toes, legs, and nose would never feel warm ever again. He watched as Phil shoved the bag from the zoo into the closet just as the bedroom door opened and Mel poked her head in with a bright grin.

“You boys have a good time?”

Sitting up quickly, Clint swallowed hard and nodded, the butterflies doing the Riverdance in his stomach. At the foot end of the bed, Phil tugged his sweatshirt off, dark brown hair sticking up in all directions. The discarded shirt landed with a soft thump beside him on the bed, distraction enough to look away and hopefully not make too big of an ass of himself.

“It was cold,” Phil answered, turning to find his sleep clothes for the night, “but yeah, it was good.”

Mel seemed to accept this answer as she chuckled lightly and nodded. “I brought the decorations for the tree and stockings down this afternoon. I’d like you boys to decorate the tree for me tomorrow. I have that Christmas luncheon with the Dean tomorrow afternoon and I’d kind of like the tree decorated before Wednesday.”

“What’s Wednesday?” Clint asked, a bit confused as he looked between Phil and Mel.

“Christmas Eve,” answered Phil.

Clint mouthed a silent “Oh” and quickly ducked his head, kicking himself for sounding like an idiot for not remembering that. It was terrifying that there was only two days left until Christmas. The first one he’d have in a real, true family setting since he'd been sixteen years old.

“Are you and dad going to ‘midnight mass’ Christmas Eve?” The air quotes around midnight mass were obvious as Phil searched around for his sleep pants.  

Mel nodded, the sweeps of brown hair brushing across her cheek as she stayed partially hidden behind the door. “We are. Are you going to be joining us this year?”

“Nope,” Phil’s answer was instant, automatic, and enough that the P popped at the end. “Probably not.”

“Phillip Jason…”

“Hey, you asked.”

Phil turned back towards the door, the red and blue plaid pants in hand, not even flinching at his mother’s disapproving look and sigh. When it was obvious neither of them were going to push the subject any further, Mel shook her head and looked away first. Phil had won whatever the little unspoken battle had been.

“There’s a couple plates of leftovers for you both downstairs in the fridge. Make sure you turn the lights off before you go to bed, please?”

Muttering a quiet assurance that they would, Phil fiddled with the waistband of his sleeper pants before looking up in time to wish his mom a goodnight just as the door started to close part way. It paused, Mel poking her head back in quickly.

“Keep the door open,” she added before disappearing back behind it. A moment later, the door down the hall clicking shut quietly.

Clint looked at the door, then Phil, noticing the pink that rose high up his neck and to the tips of his ears. That was kind of a weird request. Whatever it had meant, Phil apparently understood and was flustered by it. It was obvious there was some kind of tension hanging in the air, making Clint shift awkwardly on the bed for a moment before meeting Phil’s embarrassed gaze.

“So, that was weird.”

Phil huffed and shook his head, starting for the door. “Not if you know my folks,” he mumbled under his breath. “I’m gonna go turn the lights off downstairs and hit the can. Go ahead and get comfy. I’ll be back in a few.”

Watching as Phil disappeared out into the hallway, Clint huffed a heavy sigh and flopped back onto the bed again. He laid there for a moment or two before he pulled his phone from his pocket to shoot a quick text off to Natasha, knowing she’d probably already be asleep.

[Text: I feel like I’m trapped in a bad Christmas special! And I keep making an ass of myself! And I think Phil’s kind of regretting me being here. :( ]

He tucked the phone back into his pocket before shucking his jeans and T-shirt and grabbing up his duffel again to find his own sleep clothes. Changing quickly, Clint slipped under the covers and only then realized the bed was only a full sized one, not a queen. No wonder he woke up to an Octo-Phil. There wasn’t exactly much room for either of them to spread out comfortably.

The look of confusion must have still been on his face when Phil returned.

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, shaking his head, “Sorry about the bed. When Mom renovated, she turned the guest room into an office. The new guest room’s down in the basement.”

Clint sat up quickly, already pushing the blankets back down. “Hey, I can sleep in the basement, no problem, if you want your bed to—“

“Shut up and cover back up,” Phil ordered, moving around to the other side. He was kind of bossy when he was tired.

Doing as he was told, Clint settled back into the pillows just as Phil clicked the light off. Falling asleep accidentally against each other was one thing, but trying to purposely fall asleep while lying in bed together was something entirely different. Clint rolled onto his stomach, the way he normally slept, only to knock Phil in the head with his elbow. He quickly apologized and did his best to get settled before Phil rolled onto his right side – facing Clint because Phil always slept on his right side – and not only kicked Clint’s leg, but jabbed him in the ass with his bony knee. They were both shorted blankets and Phil finally grumbled in frustration.

“Stay. Stay right where you are. I’ll maneuver the blankets and get settled and then nobody move the rest of the night.”

“Sounds unlikely, but sure.”

“Shuddup.”

Clint laughed, but stayed perfectly still on the bed while Phil worked to get the blanket situation figured out. At one point Phil had to lean across Clint’s back to tug the sheet out from under him, and for a moment Clint worried something was wrong. Phil seemed to freeze, half on top of him, and it sounded as if his breathing had kicked up a bit before the sheet was finally yanked free and Phil quickly rolled onto his left side, taking the blankets with him.

“Hey!” Clint yanked them back, causing Phil to roll with them and end with them nearly nose to nose. It was dark enough in the room that Clint couldn’t see Phil’s expression, but he heard Phil gasp quietly, felt his warm, minty fresh breath brush across his cheek. For a moment, it seemed as if Phil leaned in closer, Clint swore he could almost feel hot, damp breath against his lips before Phil suddenly scooted back as best he could and coughed softly.

“Sorry,” Phil mumbled, making sure there was plenty of space and blankets between them.

Something twisted in Clint’s stomach, something odd that he’d only felt on a handful of occasions that he really couldn’t ever put a name on.

“S’ok, no big deal,” he murmured back, staring across the bed, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness so he could see Phil better.

At least he was still facing him.

Tucking his arms under the pillow and keeping his head turned to the side, Clint laid there quietly, listening to the silence of the house and the very rare car that would drive down the street. He could tell Phil hadn’t fallen asleep yet, even if his eyes were closed and he was doing his best to pretend that he had. Something was obviously bothering him.

Finally, after what felt like hours had passed, Clint broke the silence.

“Hey, Phil?”

Phil didn’t answer. Not at first, at least.

“Yeah?” came his quiet response.

“How come you don’t go to Christmas Eve mass or whatever with your folks?”

It was an innocent enough question, though it became clear it didn’t have that great of an answer. At least not if Phil’s humorless half laugh was anything to go off of.

“I haven’t stepped foot in a church aside from funerals since I was fourteen. Something about a guy standing up in front of everyone, glowering down, and proclaiming that if you love and want to marry another man, have a life together with them, and the same rights as a straight married couple have, then you’re going to burn in the same level of Hell as murderers and child molesters. It kind of makes a guy not really wanna hear that sort of talk week after week, ya know? Especially not a fourteen year old who is trying to find the nerve to come out to his parents. So, I stopped going.”

Clint blinked in surprise. That was way more than he’d been expecting for an answer, though, it did explain why Mel hadn’t really put up much of a fight on the issue.

“When did you finally come out to your parents?”

“When I was sixteen. After I’d already had a boyfriend and really realized it was just part of who I was. I told ‘em at Thanksgiving.”

“And they didn’t freak out?”

Phil was quiet again and for a brief moment Clint thought he’d overstepped his bounds or something, but then, he and Phil had had quite a few late night heart-to-hearts in the past four years, nothing was really off limits in their talks. At least not while the light was turned off.

“They did, a little. Mom cried and I think it was mostly because she knew how ashamed of me her mom would have been. I dunno. Dad was kind of indifferent about it. Asked me if I was sure, how long I’d known, all that stuff, and finally just told me to be careful and not do anything stupid.”

A soft half-laugh escaped Clint at that. “Your mom seems pretty cool with it now.”

“She’s had five years to get used to the idea. Now it’s like it was no big deal at all, and she’s still trying to get me married off so she can have grandkids or something, I dunno.”

“Even though you’re gay?”

“Yep.” Phil sighed and scooted just a little bit closer.

Clint could almost feel the body heat coming off Phil, the space between them warming as they laid there together. He wanted to ask more questions, about Phil’s parents and how they were trying to get him married off, but a yawn broke through before he had the chance. The warmth of the bed was quickly starting to pull him under, especially once the comforting light pressure of Phil moving closer sunk in.

“ ‘M still scared of ‘em,” Clint murmured, his words slurring a bit as his voice became thicker and heavier.

Phil chuckled and Clint thought he felt fingers brush feather light over the shell of his ear.

“Don’t need to be, I promise,” Phil’s voice was barely anything more than a whisper, and if he’d said anything else after that, it was lost to the darkness as Clint hummed softly and drifted off to sleep at long last.

* * *

 

Clint rocked and bounced on his feet in time with the music, singing obnoxiously along to Frank Sinatra as Ol’ Blue Eyes sang about Santa coming to town with a list of good boys and girls that he checked twice. At the top of the ladder, Phil laughed and shook his head, doing his best not to topple over or drop the box of ornaments on Clint’s head. Doing a little spin, Clint tossed a wad of tinsel at the tree before taking an overdramatic bow as the song drew to an end.

They’d been working at decorating the tree since lunch and really hadn’t made much progress with it. Though, to be fair, the tree lights that were supposed to go up were all kinds of tangled and snarled into a terrible mess, and once they were untangled, half a strand didn’t work and one full strand refused to stay on. It took an embarrassingly long time for them to figure out the full strand was supposed to blink on and off – or twinkle, or flash in time with tinny holiday music that was supposed to come from a small white box at the end of the strand, and even more time to find the burnt out bulb that was keeping the other half strand from lighting up.

At last they’d got all the strands figured out and wrapped around the tree, carefully tucked into the branches and looking beautiful once they were all lit up. Phil explained how some of the lights had belonged to his grandparents on his mom’s side, and how after her dad had passed away two winters before, they’d inherited all of the old Christmas stuff to do with as they pleased. Most of it was still up in the attic and would probably just stay up there, but the lights and some of the ornaments had made it into the boxes of decorations.

Taking a step back, Clint tilted his head to look the tree over carefully. It was a little on the overcrowded and gaudy side, but then, it was a nice contrast to the magazine perfect living room it was situated in and Clint didn’t feel quite so out of place if the tree was out of place, too. There were some age old, homemade ornaments constructed from cotton balls and Popsicle sticks, and globes of colored strings with tons of white little beads on them – which Clint found out the hard way were actually decorative pins that had been pushed into the Styrofoam ball wrapped in string. Either way, they were old ornaments. There were even quite a few that Phil had made when he was little, ones that either were modeling clay with his hand print in the center of it, made to look like a short, pudgy, lopsided Christmas tree ( _Phillip Jason Coulson, Age 5_ written on the back in pristine cursive), or ones that had obviously been school made with his picture inside.

Clint had never gotten to make any ornaments for Christmas trees. He couldn’t even really remember having a Christmas tree, honestly.

He watched as Phil situated the last of the tinsel garland around the top of the tree before settling a beautiful angel above everything else. As Phil climbed down the ladder, Clint shook his head. Something seemed to be missing. Something that he’d seen on most every tree in pretty much every Christmas special ever made.

“Popcorn.”

Phil blinked and turned to face him. “Huh?”

“Popcorn. Needs a string of popcorn around it.” Clint answered with a shrug, casually, as if they’d just been talking about the weather. “Isn’t that what all the Christmas trees have?”

He tried not to shift under Phil’s stare, even though he really wanted to. There was something about the stare, like Phil wasn’t really sure if Clint was being serious or not, and for a moment, Clint debated laughing it off like it had been a joke. Apparently, Christmas specials and movies had lied to him. Not all trees had popcorn strings around them.

When Phil spoke, it was thoughtful, like he was actually considering it after all. “I’m not sure we have enough popcorn to do that. But, uhm, we can make some up after we hang up the stockings and see if we can’t find some kind of marathon on the TV to watch, instead?”

Clint shrugged, but nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Phil smiled softly and it was the kind of smile that usually meant he was incredibly happy with something but didn’t really want to show it. Clint watched as Phil set a shoe box down next to the fireplace and lifted the lid off. He dug around for a moment before turning to hand Clint a little stocking holder in the shape of a chimney, two black boots and a reindeer holding onto the boots for dear life. Clint looked it over in confusion for a moment before holding it up in silent questioning.

“That’s my dad’s. It’s to hang his stocking off of since we can’t put nails or anything into the mantel. Go ahead and put it up, here’s the stocking to go with it.”

Clint took the stocking and did as Phil said to. When he stood back to look at it, he couldn’t help but burst out laughing. The stocking was a continuation of the hanger, with Santa’s lower half sticking out the top of the fireplace looking miffed.

When he turned, Phil was right there with another stocking hanger, this one in the shape of an elegant sleigh. The stocking in his hand was a beautiful white, with gold snowflakes scattered about on it. Clint assumed it was Mel’s. He looked back to the box, spotting the only one left. Phil’s.

He watched as Phil pulled the hanger from the box. It was old, probably as old as Phil was, and was an igloo with a little Eskimo sitting on a block of ice, a fishing pole in hand. The hook for the pole was the hook for stocking, which Clint figured Phil had also had since probably birth. It was much smaller than his parent’s, but still a beautiful bright red. In the center was an image of Santa hugging Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer around the neck. It was really pretty adorable and Clint wished the batteries in his camera hadn’t died so he could take a picture of it.

Phil turned once his stocking was in place and leveled Clint with a pointed stare.

“Not. A. Word.”

The laughter that Clint had been trying to keep bottled up inside broke loose at that. It grew in strength when he saw the way Phil’s cheeks and ears turned just as red as his stocking was. Really, it was probably the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. Even if Phil was ready to kill him for seemingly laughing at him for it.  

* * *

 

Popcorn and a movie marathon ultimately turned into more of a nap fest than anything else. Warm and comfortable, sprawled on the couch with Phil, stomach full of popcorn and Reese’s Pieces, Clint dozed off three quarters of the way through the first movie, and by the second one, was fast asleep.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept, only that when he did finally start to wake up, it was slowly. That gentle drift where he fought to stay asleep and comfortable for as long as possible, but could distantly hear what was going on around him. The strange sensation of fingers carding through his hair had him humming softly and shifting, cuddling in and wrapping his arms around his makeshift pillow all the tighter. He thought he might have heard the familiar  _click click_ of a camera shutter, but he wasn’t sure. At least not until Phil’s voice started to break through the fog.

“Mom. What the – “

“You both look so sweet snuggled up on the couch like that! I had to get a picture! You’ll thank me, one day.”

“Or regret it completely.”

“He seems like such a sweetheart, Phillip. Why did you wait so long to bring him home?”

“Because I didn’t want you guys freaking him out. Like you’re kind of doing.”

“We just want you to be happy, sweetie. And I’m so glad that Clint seems to be the one who is making you smile. You’re so cute together.”

“Mom…”

With things finally clicking into place in his brain, Clint shifted on the couch again, snuffled, and moved to stretch, letting Phil and his mom know that he was awake at last. He’d known he was comfortable and snuggled on the couch, but it was only when he opened his eyes that he realized at some point Phil had laid down with him, spooned up behind him, and that he was using Phil’s left arm as a pillow. Not really an unusual way to wake up if they’d fallen asleep together, just, awkward. Especially in front of Phil’s mom.

He sat up slowly, pink flushing his cheeks, and ducked his head. “Uhm, hi…”

Mel smiled brightly, not even bothering to try and hide the giggle that was building up inside. Clint mentally cursed and tried to flatten down his hair, figuring it must have been standing every which way again, and he was just going to pretend he didn’t feel the crease marks on his cheek from the sleeve of Phil’s Henley.

“You two are really so adorable,” Mel sighed, shaking her head fondly at them.

Clint stole a glance at Phil, noticing the way the pink rose dark up his cheeks and ears. He could feel his own face warm and glanced away quickly to stand up. Suddenly, things were starting to make sense. Only, not really. Why would Phil’s mom think they were cute together? She made it sound like they were a couple or something. Which was just ridiculous. Even if it did kind of explain the looks they kept getting the day before.

A quiet rustling drew him from his thoughts as a package of batteries was suddenly in his line of sight. Looking up, he caught Mel’s grin and returned a confused one back at her.

“For your camera,” She explained, giving the package a little shake. “You mentioned this morning that your batteries had died, so I bought you some new ones on my way home. Hoping I could persuade you into showing us the pictures from yesterday?”

Cautiously, Clint took the box before looking back at Phil and then to Mel again.

“Uh, sure,” he nodded and shrugged, turning the batteries over in his hands a few times. Nodding again, he tucked the package into the pouch of his hoodie. “Lemme just go get my laptop and stuff and uhm, I can set it all up in the kitchen for you to look through?”

The grin that spread across Mel’s face caused the corners of her eyes to crinkle in the same way Phil’s did when he let a real smile through, and brightened her features. Clint ducked his head again and moved to scurry up the stairs, not even daring to cast a look back at Phil.

Once safe in the bedroom, Clint pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Natasha’s number, praying she’d actually answer him. It took a few rings before the other end was picked up.

“Clint, so help me, if you’re not at least coughing up blood – “

“I think Phil’s mom thinks we’re dating.” The words tumbled quick and sharp from his lips as he fumbled to open the pack of batteries.

There was a slight pause before, “Thinks you and I are dating?”

The packaging finally gave suddenly, sending the batteries skittering across the bed and floor. Clint swore under his breath as he dropped to his knees to find the ones that had rolled under the bed. “What? No. Me and Phil!”

“Oh,” Natasha sounded less than impressed, “And…?”

“‘And’? What do you mean just, ‘And’?!”

A heavy sigh came over the line, and Clint could almost hear the eye roll Natasha was no doubt giving at the other end.

“And,” the word dragged out unnecessarily long, “I fail to see how this is a problem. Half of school thinks you two are the most adorable Ace couple on campus.”

“What?” squawked Clint, dropping the batteries he’d just picked up. “We’re not a couple! And I’m not Ace!”

“Well, you’re right about one of those things, but not about not being a couple.”

“We’re not! We’re just –“

“Just friends. Yes, so you’ve been saying for the past few years.” There was another pause as Natasha sighed heavily, and it made Clint shift uncomfortably. “Clint, you two cuddle when you think no one is looking. You’re attached at the hip if you’re not in classes or something. At lunch and supper you two almost always share a plate and drink, and have eating off the same plate down to an art. And now he has finally taken you home to meet his parents.”

“He let me go with him because you and Bucky were going to Brooklyn and he didn’t like the idea of me being alone on Christmas!”

Natasha gave a noncommittal hum in response.

“He did!”

Again, Natasha gave a heavy sigh. “Clint. You two are a dog away from being an old married couple. Now if you’ll excuse me, Steve has finished fixing dinner and it’d be rude to keep them waiting. Merry Christmas.”

“Nat, I…” The line clicked and it was Clint’s turn to heave an overdramatic sigh. “Yeah. Merry Christmas.”

Standing alone in Phil’s room for another moment or two, Clint swallowed thickly. Natasha was so full of it, he finally decided. Lots of best friends would cuddle up or share food, none of that was grounds to assuming he and Phil were anything more than friends! He huffed to himself and shook his head as he swapped out the batteries in his camera, tucking the old rechargeable ones into his duffel bag to deal with at school. He grabbed his laptop and the cable to connect camera to computer and finally made his way back downstairs to the kitchen.

Mel was already at the table, a cup of hot tea next to her, when Clint walked in. Forcing as natural a smile as possible, Clint set the laptop down and powered it up, waiting for the start screen to pop up so he could attach the camera. He looked around as he waited, noticing that Phil was nowhere in sight.

Apparently, Mel Coulson was part mind reader. “Phil ran down to the basement for me to swap out laundry. He’ll be back up in a minute.”

Clint gave an awkward nod and how he kept his hands from shaking as he got everything hooked up, he didn’t know. He quickly created a folder for the pictures and copied them onto the computer before disconnecting the camera. Grabbing up the camera, he turned the computer towards Mel and stood up.

“These are the ones from the settlement thing,” he explained, bringing the first picture up, a beautiful shot of the Welcome Center covered in snow. “Just uh, hit the forward arrow to scroll through. I’m not really sure what most of the buildings or anything are, I just thought they made cool shots.”

Smiling brightly, Mel gave Clint’s arm a gentle squeeze as she turned her attention to the computer screen. “I’m sure I’ll be able to figure them out.”

“Mom’s a history professor.”

Clint spun around quickly as Phil’s voice suddenly sounded behind him. He hoped like hell his surprise wasn’t showing on his face. Or his minor panic attack.

Phil stepped past Clint and moved to hop up on the counter, grabbing an orange out of the bowl beside him. “She’s probably forgotten more about Naper Settlement than most of the volunteers there know about it now.”

At the table, Mel hummed thoughtfully, but nodded. “Probably,” she mused, smiling around her cup of tea as she continued to scroll through the pictures.

A huff of a laugh escaped Clint, and he rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. Not wanting to see the pictures just yet – it was better to see them on a bigger screen with nicer color than his laptop had – Clint turned to stand in front of Phil, play punching at his knees and reaching up to snatch a bit of orange from him once it was peeled. He grinned as Phil squawked and tried to hold the orange out of reach, Clint simply bracing a hand on Phil’s thigh and jumping a bit to grab another slice. How could Natasha say they were practically an old married couple? They were  _friends_ , that’s it. This was just the way they were. How they’d always been.

Mostly.

Maybe.

Wasn’t it?

When he wasn’t able to steal anymore orange, Clint turned his back to Phil, pretending to pout with his arms crossed over his chest. A moment later, a chin landed on his shoulder and the last slice appeared in front of him. Leaning back and resting his elbows on Phil’s knees, Clint opened his mouth and simply bit the piece in half right out of Phil’s fingers, leaving the rest for him.

Phil had just laughed under his breath and leaned back to take the half slice anyway – since it was now dripping down his hand – when Mel gave a sound which could only be described as a croon.

Turning his head, Clint glanced at the laptop, confused about what could have caused that sound. It wasn’t like there was anything overly adorable to be cooing over. Yet there she sat. A hand to her mouth. Staring at the picture on the screen. It was the first picture that Clint had asked the passerby to take for him and Phil and at first, Clint didn’t really see what the big deal was. It was just the two of them, standing in front of the penguin lights, arms slung around each other and smiling for the camera. Except, it wasn’t. Phil wasn’t looking at the camera, he was looking at Clint, with the strangest expression on his face. One that Clint wasn’t sure he’d really ever seen before.

He moved away from Phil and went to stand over Mel’s shoulder instead to look at the picture closer. The look on Phil’s face was somewhere between surprise and hope. His grey eyes wide but eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion, and his mouth hanging open just a bit as if he was about to say or ask something.

The second picture the passerby took, Phil’s arm was around Clint’s shoulders and he was smiling softly, shyly, at the camera. It was a nice look, but nowhere near like the one from the picture before it.

Clint swallowed thickly, a heavy weight settling in his stomach again. He stood behind Mel as she kept scrolling through the pictures until they came to the first selfie. It was blurry and botched and Clint had known that when he’d taken it, that was why he’d taken another, and when he saw the second one, the weight in his stomach twisted up into a million and one knots.

Again Mel crooned,  _gushing_ over how adorable the picture was. Her words quickly became white noise in Clint’s ears though as he stared at the screen. Crisp and clear, the picture was even perfectly framed. Clint’s own face stared back out through the screen, blue-green eyes shining and his smile stretching from ear to ear and bright as the sun. Behind him, penguins wiggled themselves out of the water and onto the dry land. Beside him, though. Beside him Phil’s face was hardly more than an inch or two away from his own, a soft and almost longing expression there, and a tiny smile quirking the corner of his mouth. He was looking at Clint as if he’d hung the moon and the stars above.

Finally managing to tear his eyes away from the picture, Clint turned back behind him to look at Phil and paused when he saw the back door quietly close, and Phil was nowhere in sight.

* * *

 

The rest of the night was quiet and just a bit tense between Clint and Phil. Phil did his best to give Clint some space, and Clint, well, Clint spent a good portion of the night silently freaking out because maybe Natasha wasn’t quite as full of shit as he’d thought she’d been. That is, of course, he was freaking out about his friendship with Phil when he wasn’t actively trying to not make himself sick with nerves around Phil’s parents.

Mel had gushed to her husband at supper about the selfie Clint had taken, how sweet and adorable they both looked. She begged Clint to send her a copy of it since she didn’t have many pictures of Phil since he’d gotten older, and certainly none that held that kind of expression. Robert was definitely interested in seeing the picture and insisted that after supper a group picture of the four of them be taken out in front of the finished tree, so they had one to put up on the mantle.

Clint tried to drag his eating out for as long as he possibly could, which really wasn’t all that long since his stomach was twisting and turning so much to begin with, it made it hard to have an appetite. Inevitably, he found himself standing in front of the Christmas tree, Mel’s camera in front of them and Phil once again at his side. He silently begged whatever powers that be that the nausea he felt inside wouldn’t show up on his face in the picture, because he really did try to smile nice and normally, like he didn’t have a care in the world, but inside he was truly starting to get carried away with whatever thoughts his brain came up with.

Not that he didn’t think Phil wasn’t attractive or anything, because, well, he was! He really, really was. What wasn’t there attractive about him? Nothing. From his flyaway brown hair to his crooked nose, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and the way he really, truly smiled, not just the tight lipped half smirk he was known for. All the way down to his goofy bony knees. Phil was definitely a good looking guy. Just, he was Clint’s  _best friend_! And wasn’t there some kind of unwritten law that it was just wrong to be attracted to your best friend? There had to be! Besides that, Natasha had been his best friend before Phil, and they’d tried to be more than that and it just ended in a horrible blow out that left him pretty well afraid of having another best friend, let alone a relationship with one. So obviously, it was a bad idea. Having even the slightest little inkling of a thing for Phil.

Worst idea ever.

Definitely.

Except now he couldn’t get the thought out of his head and it was driving him maybe a little bit more than insane.

When it came time to turn in for the night, they took turns with the shower and bathroom to get changed and ready. Clint was already under the covers by the time Phil came back into the room, hair still wet from the shower and his sleep pants hanging low on his hips, just the smallest sliver of skin showing between the bottom of his T-shirt and the waistband of his pants.

Not that Clint was looking or noticing.

Because he wasn’t.

Phil quietly slipped into the bed and turned out the lights without a word, and it was obvious that he was leaving an unnecessary amount of space between the two of them. He was also lying on his left side, facing away from Clint. Somehow, the hurt from Phil blatantly distancing himself from Clint outweighed the panic and anxiety of the past few days.

Lying still and quiet for a few minutes, Clint finally took a deep breath. “Phil?”

Just as before when he’d talked to Phil in bed, there was no answer. Unlike before, it stayed that way.

“Phil?” He tried again.

The mattress gave a small squeak of protest as Phil shifted and tugged the blankets up higher on his shoulders. “I’m tired, Clint. You got to sleep this afternoon. I didn’t.”

In the back of his mind, Clint heard the little voice screaming about why it was a bad idea for best friends to have more than friendly feelings for each other. And this was exactly why.

Swallowing hard, Clint pressed his face back down into the pillow and nodded. “Alright. Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ll uhm, I’ll just talk to you tomorrow.”

Phil hummed softly in acknowledgement.

“G’night,” Clint’s voice barely more than a whisper. He wasn’t even sure Phil’d heard him until he heard the murmured ‘Good night,’ in return.

* * *

 

When Clint wandered downstairs alone the following morning, only vaguely aware of the fact it was Christmas Eve day, he paused at the bottom of the steps. He could hear talking from the kitchen, Mel and Robert for sure, and he thought maybe Phil, but what had him stopping was the fact there was suddenly a new stocking and hanger sitting on the mantle. It wasn’t anything overly fancy, just a little Christmas tree hanger with a red stocking hanging from it, trimmed in silver and a silver tree and snowflakes on the front. It was an even nicer looking stocking than the one Phil had, and suddenly, it felt as if the walls were starting to close in on Clint.

It was becoming painfully obvious that Phil’s parents not only thought he and Phil were a couple, but that they were a Very Serious Couple, at that. Serious enough that he was granted his very own stocking on the fireplace.

He was still standing there staring at it when Robert came through the room, a cup of coffee in his hands.

“Ah, Clint, you’re up,” He greeted, smiling warmly as he dropped his free hand down on Clint’s shoulder. “We were just going to tell Phillip to go upstairs and wake you up. Go on into the kitchen and grab yourself a bowl of cereal, son. We’re gonna laze around and watch movies today.”

Clint looked up to meet Robert’s eyes, barely acknowledging his words, before motioning back to the stocking. “Is…is that…?”

Robert followed Clint’s trembling hand and his smile grew all the more. “That’s yours. Hope the colors are okay. Wasn’t much of a selection left. Don’t worry, we’ll get you a nicer looking one for next year.”

With a clap to the back, Robert made his way past Clint and into the living room to get comfortable on the couch, completely oblivious to the panic settling in around Clint.

Clint couldn’t take his eyes off the damn thing. He’d never had a stocking before. Not even in any of his foster homes. He’d barely gotten presents! Now, a couple he’d never met before, had gone out and made sure he had a stocking for Christmas morning. Not only that, but it was even nicer one than their own son had.

A gentle hand came to rest on his arm, startling him from his internal panic attack. He turned quickly, coming face to face with Phil, and his breath caught for one terrifying moment. Phil was all soft lines and still sleep rumpled even though he’d obviously been awake longer than Clint. He still looked like he’d lost a part of him, though, even if he did try to hide it behind a soft smile – one that didn’t remotely reach his eyes.

“Here,” Phil held out a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, lowering the hand that was on Clint’s arm. “Figured you might be hungry, so,” he shifted awkwardly, his empty hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as he waited for Clint to take the bowl. “Mom said it was okay for you to eat in the living room while we watch movies and everything.”

Slowly and carefully Clint took the bowl, his fingers brushing ever so lightly across Phil’s in the process. When their eyes met, he was certain Phil was going to see just how badly he was freaking out inside and take pity on him. Offer to let them just spend the day hanging out upstairs, or even going out for a while. Instead, Phil quickly looked away and drew his hand back like he’d been burned, turned, and went into the living room to sit.

His heart was racing and the bowl of cereal felt like a lead weight in his hands as he continued to just stand in the middle of the hall, suddenly unsure of where to go or what to do. Part of him yelled to run. To just set the bowl down, sneak out the front door, and book it. To hell with shoes and the fact that there was fresh snow on the ground. Just get the hell out of Dodge before he did something stupid! The other part of him though, tried to convince him that everything was fine. He was being ridiculous and that nothing had changed. There wasn’t the tension that he thought had suddenly sprung up between himself and Phil.

For the third time, someone approached and drew him out of his inner turmoil. Mel simply laughed at his bewildered look, though, and gently guided him along into the living room, positioning him on the loveseat next to Phil before going to curl up on the couch next to her husband.

Clint absently watched as Robert queued up the movie selections for them, a couple of black and white classics, followed by ones like  _White Christmas_ , and  _National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation_ , and interspersed with all of Mel’s favorite TV show Christmas episodes (which Clint really didn’t mind because, who didn’t love  _M*A*S*H_ or  _WKRP in Cincinnati_. And especially  _Quantum Leap_! Okay, so, he watched TVLand in their dorm room a bit too much, so sue him.) It was certainly enough that it took them through the day, pausing only long enough to have a quick sandwich or two for lunch, and well into the evening.

Through almost all of the movies and TV episodes, Clint sat as perfectly still as possible next to Phil. Even after a blanket had been dropped over their laps and Mel had teased them for being so bashful all of a sudden. It wasn’t until the clock in the hall chimed 9 PM that he found himself starting to relax and lean into Phil again. Sitting up straight and still was not an easy thing to do for Clint on a good day, but to do it for that long while mentally freaking out was just adding to the torture.

Phil had started drifting off against him, leaning in and head bobbing down towards Clint’s shoulder, so maybe cuddling up wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.  He barely heard as Robert and Mel both slipped from the living room, leaving the TV playing while a young boy named Charlie dragged a talking snowman – who was actually his deceased father come back as the snowman? – down to a frozen ice cave. It wasn’t until Phil suddenly jerked and jumped, startling both of them out of their catnaps, that Clint noticed they were alone.

“Church,” Phil mumbled, rubbing at his eyes and moving to stand up and stretch, taking the blanket with him. “They must be getting’ ready for church.”

Moving to stand also, Clint grabbed the blanket up off the floor and tossed it back onto the loveseat, nodding in silent acknowledgement. For the brief time that he and Phil had been dozing off on the couch, the knot in his stomach had loosened and smoothed itself out. Everything felt right again. Normal. Now he was awake and standing awkwardly in the middle of Phil’s living room, shuffling after him like a lost puppy as Phil started to leave the room.

When Phil stopped suddenly in the archway leading from living room to dining room, Clint made sure he didn’t topple into him again, and instead stepped to the side. He glanced around to find why Phil had stopped and felt the nervous tingle run down his spine when he saw it was because Robert and Mel were just about to leave. The couple turned towards them, smiling and offering a wave from where they stood by the backdoor, until Mel noticeably giggled. She wordlessly pointed above their heads and gave them both a pointed look.

Clint glanced up in confusion, looking around at the ceiling until his eyes landed on a clump of leaves dangling above them. Mistletoe. Of course. Of  _course_ they landed themselves under a cluster of mistletoe. Phil cursed under his breath before meeting Clint’s eyes. There was something in Phil’s grey eyes that Clint really couldn’t put his finger on. Not quite hope, not quite embarrassment, but more than a little uncomfortableness.

Shaking his head a bit, Phil took a breath. “Clint, we don’t have to. It’s just –“

Before he could finish, Clint leaned up and pressed a quick, light peck on Phil’s cheek. Nowhere in the rules of mistletoe kisses does it state it has to be a kiss on the lips, right? A simple, harmless little peck to the cheek was fine. Friends definitely kissed each other’s cheeks. He knew that for a fact! Still, pink rose quickly up Phil’s neck and across his cheeks at that simple act.

From the backdoor a cry and playful jeering went up.

“C’mon now you two!” Robert called, tugging his scarf around his neck. “Don’t have to be shy all of a sudden! You guys have probably had better kisses than that in front of your friends!”

Panic rose up to a whole new level in Clint at that. He quickly shook his head, mouth open to protest, to tell Phil’s parents that they weren’t a couple. They never had been! They were just friends! Honest! The words were caught in his throat though. The only sound to come out was a quiet whimper, and even then it took a warm, broad hand suddenly on the back of his neck, pulling him in closer, to get it out.

One minute he’s reminding himself that he and Phil are just friends, the next he’s got soft, gentle lips pressed against his in a feather light, chaste kiss. A hand on the back of his neck and another so tenderly cupping his jaw, thumb stroking across his cheek even though neither of them opened their lips nor tried to intensify the kiss. It seemed to carry on for ages though, sending Clint’s mind spinning and his heart and stomach on a strange flip-flop thrill ride.

It took the quiet  _snick_ of the back door closing to pulling them out of the kiss. Stumbling back with wide eyes, Clint stared at Phil for a terrifyingly long moment before he felt all the walls crashing in on him. Gasping, and with no clue what else to do, he turned, darted out the front door and into the snow, not even caring that he was still barefoot and in his sleep clothes. He needed air and open space. His entire world seemed to be crashing down around him, turning itself around and presenting itself as something new and terrifying.

Natasha was right. She'd been right all along. Everything was there and clear and should have been obvious to Clint. So how come he never saw it until now?

Behind him, Phil burst out the door, calling for him to stop. Swallowing down great gulps of cold air, Clint spun around to face him, fear and panic clear on his face. His hands trembled at his sides as he stared Phil down, still trying to get his mind calmed down.

Phil stepped up to him, catching him by the arm in order to keep him from running again. Clint struggled to get free, needing space between them to keep from feeling like he was going to run out of air. Which he was sure was going to happen, especially if Phil kept staring at him with hurt and confusion in his eyes.

“Clint,” Phil’s voice trembled softly as he slowly loosened his hold on him, “What…”

Clint pulled his arm free and began to pace through the ankle deep snow, ignoring the heavy wet flakes that were falling down around them.

“I…I can’t. I can’t…I can’t do this,” He finally panted out, running a trembling hand through his hair as he shook his head. “I can’t do this, Phil. I appreciate you lettin’ me tag along and everything but…Jesus fuck…I don’t belong here! You…This place is like Martha Stewart’s wet dream, okay? Fuckin’ cookie cutter house with the perfect Christmas decorations out here,” he waved his hand around to the lights that lined the gutters and windows, the snowmen and lighted wire trees, “and the inside of your place looks like every room came straight off a fuckin’ Better Homes and Garden’s Christmas Edition magazine!”

Clint’s hands shook noticeably and his voice grew tighter and louder the more he paced and panicked. “And your parents are like…a modern version of Ward and June Cleaver! Nobody has parents like that in real life, dammit! What the fuck? How the hell are they so perfect? I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone!”

For a moment it seemed like Phil was going to interrupt, argue that Clint was wrong, but Clint wouldn’t give him the chance. He kept right on pacing and spun around to level him with a sharp glare and finger pointed right at his chest.

“And why the  _hell_ do they think we’re a couple?!” Clint’s voice jumped and damn near cracked, “Why does half the school think we’re a couple? We…we’re best friends, right? I mean, that’s it, isn’t it? So how come you never correct your folks? Or anybody else for that matter? Best friends can cuddle up and share food off a plate and shit, right? I don’t…I just…I—“

“Dammit, Clint! I never corrected anyone because I didn’t  _want_ to correct them, okay?” Phil finally shot back, taking two steps forward with his hands clenched at his sides. “Did it ever cross your mind that I didn’t correct anyone ‘cuz it was nice to pretend for a while that maybe we were something more than best friends? That you could maybe even be  _remotely_ interested in me? Huh?”

The words hung heavy in the freezing night air, Clint staring at Phil in confusion and Phil clenching his jaw as he stared Clint down, silently daring him to say something else. Clint, dumbfounded, took that dare.

“ _WHAT?!_ ” He exclaimed, quickly shaking his head and stammering, “I don’t…what are you…what – ”

With a growl of frustration, Phil’s hand darted out to tangle around the front of Clint’s shirt. He tugged only once, roughly, and brought their mouths crashing together in a hard, desperate, needy kiss. There was no finesse behind it. No gentle chasteness like the kiss they shared under the mistletoe inside not ten minutes before. It was all teeth and lips and tongue. Phil practically laying claim to Clint’s mouth in order to keep him from protesting any further. His hold on the front of the shirt loosened while his free hand came up to grasp the back of Clint’s neck firmly enough to let Clint know he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but not hard enough to really hurt or bruise.

A startled ‘omph!’ followed Clint’s swallowed up sentence and he couldn’t move for a full five seconds as his mouth was plundered by Phil’s insistent tongue. When his brain finally did come back online, Clint gave a small, soft whimper-whine, and brought his frozen fingers up to curl into Phil’s shirt at his hips. He held on tight, slowly relaxing into the kiss and returning it as good as he got. The butterflies that had been dancing around in his stomach and making him feel like he was going to be sick, now began to settle, leaving something warm and comfortable in their place.

When they finally pulled apart, their lips red and sore and glistening in the bright glowing lights, they were both breathless. Somehow, Phil’s hands had moved around until he was gently cupping Clint’s face, his thumbs just under Clint’s eyes, rubbing gently and smoothing across his cheekbones. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long, silent moment, faces still close enough that Clint could feel Phil’s huffs as he tried to catch his breath.

Phil took a deep breath when he let his eyes fall shut and leaned his head back in against Clint’s, their foreheads touching and noses just barely brushing.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” He murmured, breath warm and gentle over Clint’s lips. “Since before Stark’s party and double since then.”

Clint stood silent in front of him, still clutching at Phil’s hips, though whether because his fingers were cold or because he was too afraid to let go, it wasn’t clear. His eyes trailed across Phil’s lips as Phil licked across them, wetting them again in a way that made the warmth in the pit of Clint’s stomach clench and drop even lower.

“I’ve liked you since the second I first laid eyes on you, and when everyone started to assume we were a couple, I…” Phil’s voice trailed off as he swallowed hard and moved just enough to nuzzle their noses. “I wanted to believe I might have had a chance with you. Even just for a little while. I liked pretending every time you draped across me, or stole food off my plate, or we fell asleep together, that it meant something more than just you being tactile and a goofball.”

Slowly Phil pulled back again so they were eye to eye once more. He brushed his thumb across Clint’s cheek one time, his hand shifting down to settle on the crook of Clint’s neck instead. “I never meant to scare you, or make you uncomfortable, Clint, but…God it felt so good pretending and I…I’m pretty sure I went and fell in love with you at some point because – ”

This time, it was Clint who cut Phil’s sentence off. His hands finally came up off Phil’s hips only so that his arms could wrap around his shoulders and dive back in for another kiss. Okay, so maybe he’d been living in denial for too long, convinced himself that best friends turned lovers was just a heartbreak waiting to happen. Maybe he’d told himself that enough times so that he’d believe it and stop looking at Phil hopefully, longingly, wishing that Phil would maybe someday want a mess like him. Because he was a mess. There was absolutely no doubt about that. And Phil? Phil had always been so out of Clint’s league. The magazine perfect home and parents were proof of that. Still, maybe…

Pulling back slowly from the kiss, gently dragging Phil’s bottom lip along for the ride, Clint looked up from under his long dark lashes and laughed softly. “God, Coulson,” he huffed, “We’re such fucking idiots, huh?”

A surprised burst of laughter bubbled up between them as Phil pulled Clint in for a hug, holding him close and tight and burying his face in his neck. Clint held on to Phil, his fingers once again curled up in the soft thin fabric, his own head resting on Phil’s shoulder. The snow stuck to their hair and lashes, slowly melting as it touched their flushed cheeks. They probably would have stayed standing out there on the front lawn holding each other the rest of the night if it weren’t for one little problem.

“Phil?” whispered Clint, turning and pressing his nose and lips to Phil’s shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Can we maybe go inside now? I can’t feel my toes.”

Phil burst out laughing, nearly doubling over as he gave Clint one last squeeze and released him from the hug. Grinning fully, he nodded and reached instead to lace their fingers together. “Now whose fault is that, ya dork?”

Heat rose up on Clint’s cheeks and he hunched his shoulders just a bit, turning to follow Phil back up to the house. Yeah, running barefoot into the snow was not one of his greatest ideas. Head ducked, he knocked their shoulders together.

“Shut up.”

A soft kiss dusted across his chilly cheek as Phil pulled him back up the front steps.

“I really am sorry you’ve been so uncomfortable here the past couple of days,” apologized Phil. “But believe me, the only reason our house looks so perfect is because my folks wanna sell it and move someplace a little smaller. If you’d have seen it two years ago, before my grandpa died? You probably would have felt a lot more comfortable here. Renovating it meant they could get a higher selling price for it, though. That’s the only reason it looks like Martha Stewart’s wet dream.”

Clint’s shoulders hunched up to his half-froze ears and he ducked his head all the lower. “I always kind of figured this was how you’d grown up all along.”

Once inside, the door shut behind them, Phil turned to kiss Clint again. A soft, slow, tender kiss.

“Don’t worry about it,” Phil murmured, not even pulling back enough for their lips to really part. “We’re good now, though, right?”

A tremor and flutter ran through Clint as he nodded dumbly, barely breathing out a quiet, “Yeah.”

Phil nodded, slowly walking them in the direction of the stairs.

“Then you wanna go upstairs and warm up under the covers with me?”

Another flutter down low in Clint’s stomach had him groaning softly and nodding again quickly. “What about your folks?”

Pausing on the first step, Phil rested his hands on Clint’s shoulders and looked down at him, a coy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, grey eyes bright with mischief.

“At least forty-five minutes until they get home. I can think of a lot of ways to warm back up in forty-five minutes, can’t you?”

Clint groaned and doubled over, his head coming to rest on Phil’s stomach as he nodded once more. Lifting his eyes to meet Phil’s, the warmth that had settled low in his stomach spread all through him when he saw the way Phil was smirking down at him. It coiled up in his chest, wrapped around his lungs and heart making it hard to breath.

Phil dipped his head lower, stealing another kiss before turning with Clint’s hand in his and starting back up the stairs. Clint followed eagerly, practically tripping over his feet in order to keep up.

“Your parents still scare the hell out of me. You know that, right?”

Laughing out loud and giving Clint’s hand a squeeze, Phil shook his head fondly as he tugged Clint up to the landing. He tossed a grin over his shoulder when he pushed open his bedroom door and stepped into the room, still chuckling softly.

“I love you.”

Clint rolled his eyes, stumbling into the room behind him. “Gee, that changes everything.”

Trailing his hand up Clint’s arm, Phil’s grin turned to a soft, fond smile, and he pulled him into the bedroom further. Free hand on the door, Phil gently pushed it shut, the click loud and resolute in the empty hallway.

~*~BONUS SCENE~*~

The world outside was covered in a beautiful blanket of fresh white snow, promising of a fresh new start. Inside, the home was warm and cozy. Empty stockings, brightly colored wrapping paper and large star bows littered the family room, the remnants of the chaos that had blown through a half hour before. In the living room, Robert stood with the phone to his ear, a bright grin on his face as he laughed and nodded, talking to his parents and wishing them a Merry Christmas before telling them all about their grandson’s new beau. Mel was in the kitchen, getting things ready for dinner later, after she shooed Clint out when he shyly offered to give her a hand with everything.

In front of the fireplace, Phil sat with his back against the recliner, a new extra-large, extra-fluffy, blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Plenty of room for two people to be cuddled up in. His arms were around Clint, holding him close, bracketing him with his legs, and awkwardly trying to flip through a new graphic novel he’d gotten. Clint, dressed in a pair of Phil’s sleep clothes and his hair still sticking up every which way, leaned his back into Phil’s chest and kept tilting his head back to press quick, light kisses into Phil’s jaw. In his arms, a one and a half foot tall emperor penguin plush toy, the much smaller version of the one he’d wanted at the zoo was well on its way to having the stuffing hugged out of it.

There was a new picture framed and sitting on the mantle. It was the one of Phil and Clint in front of the penguin habitat that Mel had liked so much. Hastily printed on cheap photo paper and framed as a place keeper until Clint could get back to school and print it off properly to give to Mel and Robert. Maybe as a new house warming gift.

As he settled in against Phil again, Clint’s eyes grew heavy watching the fire dance in front of them. Slowly, things were becoming less intimidating and nerve wracking. He’d even been able to carry on a conversation with Phil’s parents that morning over breakfast about what pictures they wanted taken to best showcase the house. And he didn’t freak out even a little when he saw there were presents under the tree for him. Okay, well, maybe a little tiny freak out, but Phil’s hand rubbing soft circles down his back helped calm him down quickly enough. With his head on Phil’s chest, safe and warm and protected, Clint decided maybe what Mel had told them at breakfast was true after all – after they’d come clean about having never been a couple up until that point: “Best friends make the best lovers.”

His eyes closed and a content smile on his face, it was hard to remember what he’d been so terrified of in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Clint is scared of meeting Phil’s parents


End file.
